Can we promise commitment?

Can we promise commitment?

“Built to Last“, the successful book by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, tells us about great organizations, real visionary companies that have prospered over long periods of time, and shows the unique practices and habits that these companies adopted. But I wonder if any of these companies’ CEO or founders could answer a simple question: “Can you promise that your company will survive?”

Particularly in this financial climate, we see more or more companies going bust, some of which are major brands. Only a few months ago they were all showing fantastic profits and no-one would ever imagine such a collapse. So how do you know who to put your faith in? What assurances can you expect to get from your business partners, suppliers and service providers?

Customers are asking us different questions, amongst which:
– How long has the company been in existence?
– How many employees do you have?
– How many clients do you have?
– What industry sectors do these clients operate in?

I guess that all these questions mean: “Are you a real company that is built to last?”, or – perhaps the real question is – are you just two students working in a warehouse with no penny, no future and no ability to survive more than a few months :).

I believe that no company could promise such a thing, but what every CEO can promise is a commitment to manage the company in a responsible way and to take all the necessary steps to keep the company profitable and strong.

Sharing some business indicators that show that the company is ‘on the ball’ usually helps.

So what are our success indicators so far?:
– We have more then 1700 registered companies, with clear increase in new companies per day ratio.
– We see a steady growth in revenue over the very few months of commercial operation.
– We are earning more, and not losing money – our income is higher than our operational expenses.
– We have started expanding our business using selected affiliates.
– Our dev team releases a new major version every 4-6 weeks as planned.
– We keep meeting customer expectations and deliver feature requests consistently.
– Our support team responds to most queries within a few hours.
– We keep going.
– We keep going.
– We keep going :)

Sure. We can use some fancy slogans, promise that we will always be #1 and publish a press release for every new customer. But this is not our way here at Testuff.

We have no written commitments signed with the customers, but we do follow a strict policy within the company with regards to ‘making good’ on our promises and intentions. We never promise something we can’t guarantee to perform (on time and in good quality). Our commitments are also shown in our support efforts and our open communications with our customers community.